 Book
Reviews
with Robin Osborne
Black Juice
by Margo Lanagan
Allen & Unwin $17.95
 The
forthcoming Byron Bay Writers' Festival is a broad literary church that includes
the famous, the upcoming, the controversial and the under-rated, along with industry
figures offering sound advice to the aspiring. Equally important are the writers
for children and young adults who attract an audience often thought to be interested
only in television and computers.
The well-published Margo Lanagan, who lists being a mother of two boys along
with her literary achievements, has won strong acclaim for this collection of
short stories, including a win in the 2004 Victorian Premier's awards, a Children's
Book Council short-listing and this week a short-list nomination in the Courier
Mail's award for best young adult fiction work (another finalist is local writer,
Joanne Horniman, whose excellent Secret Scribbled Notebooks was reviewed in this
column last year).
Lanagan indeed has a distinctive voice, so much so that a readjustment of consciousness
is necessary to truly appreciate the disconcerting world the author is imagining
- somewhere between ours and that of, say, Lord of the Rings (the first story's
characters have names like Chief Barnardra, Ikky and Dash) but the effort is well
worth it.
While peopled by generally affable types, the collection is not an easy journey,
with the stories' somewhat ominous tone making them as appealing to adult readers
of fantasy as to the younger, with mid-teens being the prime audience targeted.
In the first, 'Singing My Sister Down', a family goes to a tar-pit, as bleak
a locale as can be imagined, for a picnic that involves walking out onto the ooze
with mats to spread your weight.
'In the winter you come to the pit to warm your feet in the tar. You stand
long enough to sink as far as your ankles - the littler you are, the longer you
can stand. You soak in the heat for as long as the tar doesn't close over your
feet and grip, and it's as good as warmed boots wrapping your feet.
'But in summer, like this day, you keep away from the tar, because it makes
the air hotter and you mind about the stink.'
In the tradition of tales from the dark side - think Edgar Allen Poe and his
successors - events start out benignly and have a habit of going pear-shaped,
although in this collection they tend to do so quirkily, rather than murderously,
which makes a nice change from what young readers might catch on the nightly news.
- • Margo Lanagan will be appearing at the Byron bay Writers' Festival
from August 4-8. For tickets and information phone 6685 6262 or visit the website
at www.byronbaywritersfestival.com.
- Books reviewed are available at Book Warehouse, Keen Street, Lismore.
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